1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to nuclear fuel pellet production and, more particularly, is concerned with an apparatus and method for aligning nuclear fuel pellets and placing them in trays row by row.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is conventional practice in processing fuel pellets to employ an apparatus for picking individual fuel pellets from a transport conveyor, aligning the fuel pellets in a row and transferring the row of pellets onto a grooved tray. One prior art apparatus described in Jitsugansho Application No. 58-64160 has been used heretofore to carry out these operations.
Although this prior art apparatus is highly reliable, every time one pellet is discharged from the transport conveyor and transferred to the tray, a great amount of intermittent movements of components of the apparatus are required. From the point of view of wear, the amount of energy consumed, the cost, etc., there is a limit to the speed at which components undergoing such movements can process pellets. Therefore, it is difficult to improve the speed of operations performed by components of this apparatus beyond the current levels.
Due to recent increases in pellet production capacity, one of the problems associated with the prior art apparatus is that its pellet processing speed has not kept pace with pellet fabrication speed. Consequently, a need exists for improvements which will increase the speed at which fuel pellets can be processed so as not to constrain the higher pellet fabricating speed.